In this study, the photocatalytic activity of polypyrrole-TiO 2 nanocomposite was studied experimentally for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye under simulating solar light irradiation. To improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 under sunlight irradiation, conducting polymers such as polypyrrole (PPy) and its derivatives are generally used as photosensitizers. The PPy-TiO 2 nanocomposite was prepared by the chemical oxidative polymerization method. The prepared nanocomposite showed better photocatalytic activity than bare TiO 2 under sunlight irradiation for the degradation of MB dye. The prepared nanocomposite was subjected to characterization techniques such as SEM-EDAX, FT-IR, UV-DRS, XRD, TGA and PL spectral analysis. Different influencing operating parameters like initial concentration of dye, irradiation time, pH and amount of PPy-TiO 2 nanocomposite used have also been studied. The optical density of the dye degradation was measured by UV-Visible spectrophotometer. The repeatability of photocatalytic activity was also tested. A plausible mechanism was proposed and discussed on the basis of experimental results.
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